


Splash

by hes5thlazarus



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes5thlazarus/pseuds/hes5thlazarus
Summary: Saathiray gave me this prompt: Nonsexual acts of intimacy - (1) Taking a bath together, while (2) reading a book together. Out of that came this.Quark takes a dip in a hot spring. Odo follows. It is not, Odo insists, sexy. Regardless, Quark is going to enjoy tormenting him with mutual nudity, since he was the one who interrupted his bath, after all.
Relationships: Odo & Quark (Star Trek), Odo/Quark (Star Trek)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	Splash

Quark knows he can be anywhere. Warily he removes his towel and steps into the hot spring. Odo could even be the water, the man’s got no boundaries in the heights and depths of his obsession. Quark hisses at the heat, but sinks into the pool slowly. His eyes dart around, searching for wrong-way currents. The pool ripples as it should, and Quark is almost disappointed. He would have liked to catch him out.

They weren’t at Risa, alas. They were at yet another symposium on the economics of the Occupation, at one of Bajor’s better moons. The Nagus wanted a representative, so he went, and Odo followed--“for security reasons,” so he claimed, as if it were possible to broker a transport deal with the Orion Syndicate under so many tense Bajoran eyes. It was more than possible, it was supposed to happen, and it still would--Odo wouldn’t have catch him out, he had delegated the actual contract negotiations to Leeta. When in doubt, send in the shop steward. The union would take a small percentage of the cut, the deal would come off, and he could leverage the money they’d make to argue against the incremental raise they wanted for the next solar year. Holiday bonuses? Quark snorted and sunk his lobes deep into the mineral water. He’d let the Grand Exchequer run bankrupt before capitulating to Rom again.

Eyes barely visible over the steaming water, Quark glowered. Odo was afoot and he knew it, and he could not get his back to relax. The water caressed invitingly at all through scrunched-up muscles, but Odo crossed his arms and brooded. Where could the Constable be? He checked the water again, looking for discolorations and weirdly-static ripples. Ferengi had been quasi-crustacean, every primal instinct was screeching at him to watch out, he knew something was there.

Quark stood up suddenly. “Odo!” he growled. “I know you’re there, you pervert!” He smirked to himself: that’ll get him.

The water split and swirled, and out rose his least favorite goo monster, still forming the facsimile of clothes. Quark rolled his eyes. The man was so buttoned-up he couldn’t even form genitalia, let along a semblance of a chest, or--Quark grinned devilishly--a nipple, if he ever knew what those were. Odo posed, arms crossing, projecting an aura of unbothered authority. Quark stared steadily back, conscious of the fact that he was naked. Odo gazed at a spot beyond Quark’s head.

“Quark!” Odo rumbled. “I know you’re up to something.”

“Oh, clearly,” Quark said. “I was taking a bath, you weirdo. I could sue you for this, you know. Invasion of privacy and--sexual harassment. I’d like to see the look on Captain Sisko’s face when that brief crosses his desk.”

Odo made a disgusted noise. “I was merely...relaxing when you stepped into me.”

Quark thought, sounds dirty. He snorted. “And you were just too embarrassed to let me know we were mingling?”

Odo put his hands up. “You didn’t give me a chance before--disrobing. I was trying to leave discreetly.”

Quark laughed. He was obsessed with him. “Well, leave. Unless you’re enjoying the view. Then I will charge.” He sank back down into the water, grinning. It was good to fluster the Constable, and even better to get him to loosen him up a little. This would be enough blackmail for at least one discount cargo bay rental.

If Odo could spit, he would have. “Don’t flatter yourself, Quark.” He sat down at the other end of the pool and pulled out a pad from the undergrowth. Quark raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t been lying, then. He really was too easy to fluster, if just a little nudity got him this inept. That was something he could work with. He just thought he liked more humanoid women, that’s all.

“What’re you reading?” Quark asked.

Odo sniffed.

“Good book?” Quark tried again.

Odo made a face, but continued to make a show of reading. He flipped the digital page and hummed to himself, offkey. It was the Internationale. O’Brien had taught Leeta who taught everyone, last week: fucking Federation types.

“Do you mind?” Quark demanded. “I’m trying to relax here!”

“And I’m trying to read,” Odo retorted. He looked smug, and continued to hum communist propaganda under his breath. Quark scowled. The Federation Labor Council had discontinued use of the song in memorial ceremonies after linking with the Andorian Workers Collective and the Betazed Union Network, but O’Brien and Bashir still sang it when they got particularly rowdy at the bar, especially after Rom won the union drive. It was annoying. Odo knew it was annoying. He was doing it on purpose, and Quark had to get back at him.

Quark smirked, a devilish thought swirling. He patted the water’s surface twice. Odo twitched. Quark continued to splash idly.

“Quark,” Odo growled.

Quark splashed innocently. “What?”

“The splashing.”

“I have a right to splash,” Quark said. “If you’re humming, I can splash. There’s no law against that.”

“There should be,” Odo said. “Being a public nuisance.”

Quark traced a spiral in the water, working himself to a rhythm. Odo looked deeply uncomfortable. Just one more try, then, and he’ll be finished. “I’m wondering--”

“No.”

Quark rolled his eyes, but continued, “I have to wonder, Constable. When you turn to your--goo state, do you blend with the water? How close to me did you get? Because I’m fine with you looking.” He smiled at Odo innocently. “But if you’re touching, well--I’m certain we can arrange a mutually beneficial deal. I’m certain we can hammer something out.”

Odo stood up so quickly he stretched and shot up a few inches taller. “I’m going.” He slung himself out of the pool, dropping the pad at the end of the hot spring. Quark cackled.

“Oh, don’t be shy!” he called after him. “I’m just having fun.” He watched Odo’s back as he retreated. Quark sunk back into the water, chuckling to himself. He had scored a major victory against the Constable and his prudishness, doubtless he would pay the price. But for now, he was going to rest in his laurels and enjoy his song-free bath. He was curious, though, what was the Constable reading? He swam over and picked up the pad.

“Tanner’s Twelve Swingers,” Quark read. “By Lawrence Block. ‘Tanner’s agreed to smuggle a sexy Latvian gymnast—the lost lady love of a heart-sick friend—out of Russia. With the Cold War at its chilliest and the Iron Curtain slammed shut, this will not be easy, especially since everybody in Eastern Europe, it seems, wants to tag along, including a subversive Slav author and the six-year-old heir to the nonexistent Lithuanian throne.’ What the fuck?” 

Quark put the pad aside. He was expecting a blatant romance novel, not a spy thriller with a slight erotic twist--and a smuggler as the hero. Could it be that Odo was more sympathetic than he thought? “I’ve got to tell Garak about this,” Quark said. “The Major. We can do a holoprogram, spring it on him. As a gift, but monetize it. The latinum, on Bashir alone. And it’s not plagiarism, just business. The Constable’s business!”


End file.
